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“Ralph Lauren sent us an email and we thought it was a scam at first,” Rogue Industries founder Michael Lyons says. “So we check it out and we’re like, okay, they’ve done the homework and they want to partner. We did not expect that.” Lyons, who launched his company in 2007 with a leather front-pocket wallet and has since added bags and belts, was recommended to Ralph Lauren execs by a mutual acquaintance at Portland’s Sea Bags. To honor Ralph Lauren’s commitment to American-made materials for its Olympics uniforms, Lyons spent months tracking down stateside suppliers who could provide the webbing, steerhide leather, and nickel-plated buckles for the belts. “Every single part entailed vetting a new vendor for us,” he says. “We could certainly expand into web belts now.”

Michael’s father, David, moved from Quebec to Lewiston during the height of the city’s shoemaking boom in the 1950s and found work in a moccasin factory, eventually becoming its owner. Later, David and Michael opened their own factory and expanded David’s product line to encompass hand-sewn loafers and dress shoes. In the 1990s, Michael founded, then sold, the third Rancourt shoe-manufacturing company. When its owner announced plans to close the company’s Lewiston plant, Michael and his son, Kyle, bought it back and opened Rancourt & Co. there, in 2009. Today, Rancourt and Quoddy, a crafter of casual moccasins, sandals, slippers, and boots, are among the few remaining Lewiston shoemakers.

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Since 2016, Lewiston’s Kyle and Michael Rancourt (top right) have partnered with Ralph Lauren to make patriotic footwear for American Olympic and Paralympic athletes. This summer, the Rancourts’ suede bucks, and a webbing belt by Standish’s Rogue Industries, are part of a uniform athletes will sport during the opening and closing ceremonies in Paris.

Team USA Olympics2024

Producing footwear for more than 500 American Olympians and Paralympians to sport in Paris was a Herculean effort that began last year. Each pair of suede bucks was ushered through 130 steps in the manufacturing process, Michael says, noting that the shoes also proved beastly to keep clean. Employees wore rubber gloves when handling them and dusted them frequently with cans of compressed air. “They’re so proud to see what they’ve made on Team U.S.A.,” Michael says. “It’s a big to-do for us, and we don’t take it for granted.”

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The Rancourt shoes are part of a uniform, designed by Ralph Lauren and produced by various U.S. manufacturers, that American athletes will wear during the opening and closing ceremonies at this summer’s Olympic and Paralympic Games, in Paris. It includes a crisp navy blazer edged in red and white stripes, a navy-pinstriped shirt, and light-wash jeans. The jeans are cinched with a leather-and-webbing belt emblazoned with an American flag and “Team U.S.A.” in block letters, crafted by another Maine maker: Rogue Industries, in Standish.

Rancourt, which produces its own line of loafers, moccasins, boots, and dress shoes, began making footwear for Ralph Lauren 15 years ago. The fashion label, which has outfitted Team U.S.A. since 2008, tapped Rancourt to craft red-white-and-blue leather boat shoes for the 2016 Summer Games, in Rio, and white fabric sneakers with thick crimson and navy stripes for the 2021 Summer Games, in Tokyo. For the 2022 Winter Games, in Beijing, Rancourt fabricated snow boots with deer-leather linings in another patriotic palette. “It’s been a good partnership,” co-owner Michael Rancourt says. “We think it’s good for the state and good for our community.”

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The shop floor at Lewiston shoemaker Rancourt & Co. was a cacophony of whirring, snipping, and clattering on a recent afternoon, with some 40 employees hard at work at cutting, sewing, and polishing stations and at least as many machines drying and buffing the footwear and stitching on soles. I was on a high-decibel route to see Rancourt’s latest creation: a pair of ivory suede bucks with brick-red soles arrayed on racks in the middle of the shop. With their tailored shape and traditional palette, the shoes embody the classic Ivy League style Rancourt is known for, but the company’s logo was nowhere in sight. Instead, the bucks bore the United States Olympic Team’s logo on their tongues, plus that of fashion’s leading sartorial patriot, Ralph Lauren, on their insoles.

Colour of Letters White Off-white Flecked Grey Pale Grey Dark Grey Black Stone Pale Brown Teddy Tan Conker Dark Brown Peach Pastel Yellow (not shown) Yellow Mustard Sunflower Orange Red Pale Pink Bubblegum Lilac Bright Pink Deep Pink Deep Red Pale Blue Sea Blue Sky Blue Purple Dark Blue Navy Aqua Mint Teal Peacock Spring Green Bottle Green White Glitter Silver Glitter Gold Glitter Black Glitter Pink Glitter Rose Gold Glitter Red Glitter Light Blue Glitter Blue Glitter Purple Glitter Green Glitter